Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Lawsuits accusing Goldman Sachs
Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., their warehousing businesses
and the London Metal Exchange of constricting aluminum supplies
and driving up prices will be handled in a New York court.

Twenty-six federal cases have been filed accusing the
defendants, in various combinations, of violating U.S. antitrust
laws. While most were brought in Detroit, some are already
pending in New York, with others in Los Angeles, New Orleans and
elsewhere.

Arguments promoting each location as most suitable for
pretrial exchanges of evidence and depositions were made before
the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on Dec. 5 in
Las Vegas. That panel issued a decision yesterday choosing New
York.

“The forum has significant connections to the litigation
in as much as defendants JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are
headquartered there,” the judges said. “Numerous decisions
regarding alleged anticompetitive conduct in the market for
aluminum likely were made in this district.”

The cases will be assigned to U.S. District Judge Katherine
B. Forrest in Manhattan. The panel called her “a jurist well-versed in the nuances of complex antitrust litigation.”

Detroit Stockpiles

Detroit is the world’s second-biggest repository for
aluminum stockpiles monitored by LME, the world’s largest
industrial metals marketplace. Goldman Sachs’s Metro
International Trade Services LLC has the most LME-approved
warehouses in the city.

Delays of as long as 16 months in filling orders raised
prices for makers of outdoor porch screens, flashlights and
other products that contain aluminum, according to the
complaints.

“The monopoly allegedly occurred in Detroit,” Christopher
Lovell, an attorney who filed the first of the lawsuits on Aug.
1 on behalf of Gwinn, Michigan-based aluminum fabricator
Superior Extrusion Inc., told the panel in Las Vegas.

The restraint of trade “emanated” from Detroit, where 75
percent of the warehoused aluminum in the U.S. is stored, he
said.

Michael DuVally, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, and Brian
Marchiony, a spokesman for JPMorgan, have each said the cases
are without merit. JPMorgan’s metal warehousing business is
called Henry Bath & Son Ltd.

‘The Center’

“The center of gravity in the United States, if it’s
anywhere, is in New York,” attorney Margaret Zwisler argued
before the panel for JPMorgan and the London Metal Exchange.
“The issue here is who made the rules and how were they made.”

Goldman Sachs waived its right to argue before the
typically seven-member panel, from which appellate judge
Marjorie Rendell was absent. U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle,
a new panel member, didn’t take part in yesterday’s decision,
according to the order.